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NSA Cryptography References?
tqft asks: "As an amateur crypto freak I am interested in the NSA. I have been following them on and off for years. Having read 'Body of Secrets' by James Bamford while I got a good feel for some of the history particularly ELINT and political maneuverings, I am interested in finding a more thorough book, article(s), links on their cypto work. Anyone know of good references on their crypto work? Yes I know they don't publish per se, but the references to what has been published are out there somewhere."
There's lots of information on the NSA...
http://www.nsa.gov/museum/tour.html
The USPTO lists 105 patents assigned to the NSA. They're not all related to cryptography (some have to do with data capture, analysis, etc.) but a number are.
I drive past the NSA National Cryptologic Museum on the way to work every day.
Can't say I've actually seen what it has to offer...
...is encrypted.
While not NSA centric, Bruce Schneier's Applied Crytography is a great practical overview of crypto in general, with lots of practical examples and code.
Eschew Obfuscation
Ixnay on the estionsquay! They might ind-outfay about the ecretsay abalcay!
(Don't hear everything you believe, the ears have walls)
Sounds like a failed dotcom company :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If you're near the NSA, you should go check out the NSA Crypto museum. Not only is the museum really interesting, but they have a wonderful library. The library is full of crypto material of all sorts. It's a public library, so have fun!
to work at the NSA. I know I cringe when I see how holywood blows it whenever they put a computer in a movie, and computers are pretty common place and easily understood when compared to the NSA and cryptography. I imagine it must make them nuts to watch someone break the code on the NSA mainframe by connecting their acoustic modem to the doorbell. :)
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
I think to find out the information you are seeking, you need to work at the NSA in one of the higher echelon positions.
at least i can't come through...
nsa homepage
The book on the history of cryptography is David Kahn's The Codebreakers. If you haven't read it, you should.
You can't forget Bamford's first book, Puzzle Palace either. The earlier history of the NSA.
For starters, check out
http://cypherpunks.venona.com/
Most material is second hand, but as you read, you get a good feel of things.
There's also a huge amount of garbage there.
I've been a subscriber, most of the time, since 1994, although it usually isn't a good idea to post unless you have a lot of time to fight with a bunch of nuts.That said, it is a very good source of opinions, and once in a great while something very interesting happens (RC4 was disclosed anonymously a log time ago, for instance).
I forget what 8 was for.
Obviously, 99% of the stuff NSA does is not published publicly. However, there are a few things you can look at. First, as others have noted, NSA has a lot of patents. Secondly, there are a few NSA designed algorithms which have become well known publicly, including: DES, Skipjack, DSA, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 (you can find information about all of these on NIST's web page). However, keep the following things in mind: In all cases, the NSA knew that these algorithms would be public, and so they almost certainly didn't use their best tricks in designing the algorithms. Also, to the best that anyone knows, the military still mostly uses stream ciphers. Nobody has ever seen an NSA designed stream cipher.
Applied Cryptography has a couple thousand references. Some are old NSA publications. It's a good book to have anyway.
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For instance, Skipjack and KEA (don't overlook KEA, it's much more interesting than Skipjack; it's a bit complicated, but you can see some REALLY cool stuff in there).
If you're interested in more than just security analyses of algorithms, check out some of the stuff the NSA did during the AES selection process, like this.
You can also check out the cryptological museum run by the NSA near Columbia, Maryland. There are documents on design and implementation of encryption devices all over the place; for instance, SIGSALY, the first digital voice encryption system, used World War II!
Finally, check out patents! The NSA has the patent secrecy act behind it; they've classified a number of applications, only to declassify them later. Patent applications for the above-mentioned digital voice encryption system were declassified in the 1970s. A patent application on an Enigma-like rotor encryption device was declassified a just few years ago. This should give you an idea of what the NSA might have been working on.
swollef nairb mi
Its much funbier in morse but site filters out "junk" characters... .----. -- -...
> Ixnay on the estionsquay! They might ind-outfay
> about the ecretsay abalcay!
Interestingly enough, with the dept. having one of the highest geeks-per-square-meter counts in government, and with many geeks being avid slashdot readers, "they" should really be "we"!
There will be hundereds of slashdotters in the organisation - not for any dark and shadowy reason, not to spy on Slashdot... but just because they like 'Stuff that Matters'.
Red.
"I have been following them on and off for years."
I bet if you keep that up, they'll be following you...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
If you want to meet real NSA cryptographers, you can go to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, colloquially known as the "Oakland conference" because it's held at the beautiful Claremont resort hotel. Here's a review of last year's conference.
The book discusses a lot of what might be in Body Of Secrets, but everything is from the Russian point of view, which keeps it interesting. They discuss many of the logistics NSA and others had to use to get access to things like the Japanese Purple codes (which were considered so secure that their pride in their work kept them from acknowledging the blatent evidence that Purple had been compromised).
Also discusses how diplomatic one-time-pads were compromised. Special books with special bindings in special safes guarded by guards who, at exactly 12:15 would get up, do the same patrol, and then go back to listening to the ball game.
I read a book over the summer, loaned to me by the guy who created the FBI fingerprint database. I don't remember the title; but the first 3/4 was from Mr. Rowlett's own notes and autobiographical content and the remainder was biography taken from his notes. Apparently Mr. Rowlett wrote considerable, detailed notes and was at one point awarded a cash prize for secret and not-so-secret inventions of his in lieu of getting to patent them himself or apply them to a commercial enterprise. You should definitely look that name up.
I have read the first couple chapters of Applied Cryptography - I don't have $60 for it right now and there are other topics I need to work on before I get to crypto - but heed others' recommendations and get it if you are interested in crypto itself and not just the NSA in general. It's very interesting and at once overwhelming.
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Here. I'll tell you everything. Hold on a second, while I get my AOFJ:IO#reaKLEnfla;we;qw2ateats.zxcvxc
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
*nt*
The "Puzzle Palace" had some major inaccuracies. I think Bamford had better access for the latest book. (I knew some of the people he interviewed.)
I've been to the Cryptologic museum, and it's pretty humbling to see equipment I used day-to-day as "historical". Makes me feel old.
BTW, it is pronounced ee-lint. Both my wife and I are certified cryptologic signal analysts (i.e. certified in comint, elint and fisint).